From Ghalib to Gulzar: New anthology maps India's cities through 375 poems

New Delhi, From Ghalib's Delhi and Nissim Ezekiel's Bombay to Agha Shahid Ali's Srinagar and Kamala Das' Calcutta, poets have cast their spell over every corner of the country. A new anthology, "The Penguin Book of Poems on the Indian City", captures the same enchantment, taking readers on a poetic voyage across 37 Indian cities.
The recently released anthology, edited by Bilal Moin and published by Penguin Random House India , features a total of 375 poems, including works originally written in English as well as translations from nearly 20 different languages.
"It was an honour to compile this poetic atlas of Indian cities — a first-of-its-kind anthology bringing together poetic voices spanning over 1,500 years, translated from more than 20 languages. Here, legendary poets of antiquity coexist with young voices crafting verses in the age of social media, narrating the cities they inhabited and tracing their evolving identities.
"Expanding beyond major metropolises, this anthology captures the rhythms and realities of thirty-seven diverse cities, spotlighting forgotten poets and revitalizing many near-lost contributions," said Moin, who has also authored a collection of haikus, titled 'The Ideajunkyard' in 2018.
Spanning from the classical voices of Valmiki and the Sangam poets to the Bhakti and Sufi traditions represented by Surdas, Kabir, and Amir Khusrau, as well as early modern poets like Mir Taqi Mir, Narmad, Rudyard Kipling, and Rabindranath Tagore, the anthology provides a rich and immersive lyrical journey through India's cities.
It also features contemporary poets including the likes of Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Vikram Seth, Eunice de Souza, Arun Kolatkar, Amrita Pritam, Amit Chaudhuri and Gulzar. And together, they all take the reader through depictions of cities as imperial capitals, colonial outposts and dynamic, ever-evolving spaces that serve as the backdrop for postmodern life.
According to the publisher, at its core, "The Penguin Book of Poems on the Indian City" is a collection that portrays the Indian city as a complex organism and living embodiment of the collective consciences of its many, many residents.
"A collection for not just those who live in the cities featured in this book but for anyone who is familiar with the chaotic, paradoxical and magical tableau that constitutes life in a city in this part of the world," they added.
The 1062-page tome, priced at ₹1,999, is available for purchase across online and offline stores.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Hindustan Times

21 minutes ago

• Hindustan Times

Private Revolutions: Read an excerpt from Yuan Yang's new book on China

On Sunday afternoons, which were sometimes the only spare time she had in the week, June would scrub her clothes by hand while resenting the time she had to waste doing so. She relieved her boredom by listening to podcasts on her smartphone. She particularly liked the speeches of Yu Minhong, the founder of New Oriental, the country's biggest private education company. . (.) In 2013, around the time June started high school, a film had been released loosely based on Yu's life called American Dreams in China. Filled with slapstick comedy, it describes the lives of three young men from poor backgrounds who dream of studying in the US. The character based on Yu is repeatedly denied an entry visa, but the three end up founding an English-language tuition company together and striking it rich. The film includes several dramatic shots of Yu's speeches, superimposed against a stadium of cheering fans: he is a rock star, easy and confident. By the time the film was released, Yu had become a dollar billionaire and was known in China as the godfather of English teaching. A witty public speaker with a self-deprecating sense of humour, Yu liked to mix personal anecdotes with pep talks:Hew a stone of hope out of a mountain of despair and you can make your life a splendid the beginning, there were no roads in the world; only as people began travelling did roads come into being. Successful roads are formed not when people roam aimlessly, but when they are headed in the same direction. The same is true for New Oriental; it was formed as people gathered to study. *** June carried on being the top in her class, but she knew it wasn't that good a class. As the three years of high school passed by, university drew nearer. Far from being a dream, it was becoming inevitable. The only uncertainty was where she'd end up. China has around 1,400 universities that grant undergraduate degrees. About a hundred of these belong to the 'Project 211' group of elite universities, where less than half a million students enter each year. The competition to squeeze into China's top universities is higher than almost anywhere else in the world. Overall, China's 211 group admit five out of every hundred students who apply, the same rate as Harvard University. Beijing's Peking University accepts just one in a hundred applicants. *** Being from a family with a Beijing hukou helps tremendously, because universities have a quota for local students. In one year, Beijing's two top universities took 84 out of every 10,000 applicants from Beijing but fewer than 5 out of every 10,000 applicants from some of China's poorest provinces, including June's. June aimed high for her top five choices. For number 6, her fall-back option, she chose a local university, one she was sure to get into. Towards the end of high school, Teacher Song visited June in the county town where she was studying. Squeezed between June's classes and her evening study session, Teacher Song took June for dinner at a Western restaurant that had just opened. That invitation in itself – to eat Western food – sounded like a luxury to June, who had spent the previous week eating from street-food stalls. Sitting in the restaurant, Teacher Song poured tea for June from a glass teapot filled with large owers steeped in a light pink liquid. After they finished eating and got up to leave, June held on to Teacher Song tightly and cried, not knowing when they would see each other again after she finished school: whether she went to university or out to work, she would have to go far from her home town. 'I hope you live very well,' Teacher Song said. (Excerpted with permission from Private Revolutions: Coming of Age in a New China by Yuan Yang, published by Bloomsbury; 2024)

The Wire

24 minutes ago

• The Wire

When Marx Returned to Kolkata

Marxian dialectics require two contradictory social or economic phenomena that influence each other. This leads to their development and negation, but that is not the end. The negation creates a new situation that develops and needs negation again. And so it goes on through time. It is quite satisfying, therefore, in a dialectical way, to witness Karl Marx land in contemporary Kolkata in Swapnasandhani's latest play, Marx in Kolkata. Persistent rumours about his death have compelled the founding father of communism to make a comeback. Kolkata is a coincidence, but that his reputation is also at stake in the capital of the Indian state that was ruled by a democratically elected communist party for 34 years is telling. It is a little sad to see a man of Marx's stature trying to prove that he is alive. Self-justification, however, can also be the opportunity of self-searching, and in Kolkata – formerly Calcutta – Marx launches himself into deep introspection as he walks into that perfect example of the new world order: a food court. Here at this site of mass consumption (in more than one sense), where workers are treated as modern-day slaves, Marx begins to talk about himself and his life. Jayant Kripalani as Marx and Srijit Mukherji as Mephistopheles in ''Marx in Kolkata'. Photo: Sandip Kumar Marx in Kolkata is inspired by American historian Howard Zinn's 1999 play, Marx in Soho, which had Marx landing in Soho in contemporary New York instead of the locality in London. Swapnasandhani's play is directed and adapted by Koushik Sen, who keeps it primarily in English, but also uses Bengali and Hindi. Marx speaks especially of his life at his home in Soho, a London neighbourhood, where the German materialist philosopher had eventually taken refuge after being forced to leave his homeland for his radical journalism. In his Soho home, Marx wrote much of Das Kapital in the 1850s. Marx recounts how he wrote, despite everything, in the small Dean Street house in London, surrounded by garbage and squalor outside and crushed by poverty. He was intensely wary of what would happen to his legacy: he was not a Marxist, he asserts, unlike those who would use his ideas for power and profit. Marx and his wife Jenny von Westphalen, a theatre critic and an extraordinary person, saw the death of three of their children in their Soho home. Jenny kept making frequent trips to the pawn shop. Yet their home, with the three daughters who had survived, was full of laughter and joy because love and the hope for a better world held it together, as did Jenny's hard work. Class struggle may be the first contradiction in the Marxian scheme of things, but his writings were possible because of Jenny's labours at home. The admission makes the play a feminist critique of Marx's works. Sen makes two significant departures from the original in his adaptation. In Zinn's play, Marx is the only character. In Sen's adaptation Marx, played by Jayant Kripalani, gets a supporting cast: Jenny, Marx's and Jenny's remarkable precocious daughter Eleanor, a brutal manager and groups of actors, at the food court or at a meeting. Jayant Kripalani as Marx and Srijit Mukherji as Mephistopheles in ''Marx in Kolkata'. Photo: Sandip Kumar The second departure is spectacular. To the ironic echoes of the opening lines of The Communist Manifesto that Marx had written with Friedrich Engels before Das Kapital: 'A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of communism', what could have been a trap door opens at the end of the first half of the play, and through the door rises Mephistopheles himself, replete with a wanton creature wriggling at his feet. Two of god's greatest adversaries are meeting in Kolkata. History and myth confront each other. But which is which? Mephisto, represented in literature and art memorably through the ages, is played in Marx in Kolkata by Srijit Mukherji, the film director, and looks more real than ever. He rules the world with money and power. His tools are death and destruction. Mephisto is late capitalism and neo-Fascism, grotesque and lurid, funny and seductive, and looks very, very familiar. With Marx, Mephisto is up to his old trick. He tries to get Marx to sign a contact to sell his soul. What follows is interesting. Dialectics have infinite possibilities. Marx in Kolkata, which has held two shows so far in the city to an enthusiastic response, raises the very relevant question about Marx's absence, or presence, now. Kripalani, as Marx, carries the weight of the play robustly on his shoulders. The veteran actor brings to life an icon, with humour and sensitivity. His portrayal has Marx looking at a world that has displaced him with a vulnerability that is moving. It is quite evident, though, that Marx is still full of life. I am dead and I am not, Marx reminds. That's dialectics for you. Mukherji, who was a stage actor before he became a well-known film director, is the perfect counterpoint as Mephisto to Kripalani. Mukherji's Mephisto is flamboyant, flashy, amusing, trippy, younger and blood-thirsty. Mephisto is now Mammon on steroids, and Mukherji, as this sweet-talking shape-shifting monster, holds the attention of both Marx and the audience steadily. Ditipriya Sarkar as Jenny and Shaili Bhattacharjee as Eleanor are competent. Mrinmoy Chakraborty is well cast as a nasty, screaming manager. Marx in Kolkata is a romp asking a serious question. It is good to see such a burst of energy on the Kolkata stage. The play moves at a good pace, is spectacular and uses lots of movement and more than one language, which may help it to connect with younger audiences. The music, sound and sets add to the liveliness. Special mention must be made of the use of G.D. Birla Sabhaghar, including the use of the revolving stage and the entrance from below. One wonders, though, if it was necessary for Mephisto to travel across space and time and meet Marx, that too in Kolkata. 'But who other than Marx?' asks Mukherji in an off-stage interview. Capitalism and its cronies would like to finish Marx off for ever. What if, however, instead of entering the grand design of Mephistophelian myth and overarching themes, Marx had walked out from the food court into a Kolkata street and looked around? How about finding out some facts about the city? What would he have to say about the ratio of his own statues to the number of cafés in Kolkata now? What is the number of seats that the communist party named after him, which had ruled Bengal, won in the last Lok Sabha elections? What is the percentage increase in the number of temples constructed under large trees in streets in the last five years? If religion is the opium of the masses, what about the classes? A spectre is haunting Bengal, and it is not of communism. Maybe Marx could have taken a closer look? God lies in the detail, goes the idiom. The devil lies in the detail, is its other version. Chandrima S. Bhattacharya lives in Kolkata.

News18

27 minutes ago

• News18

Virat Kohli, Genelia D'Souza's 'Aeroplane Sex' Ad Was Too 'Controversial', Got Banned From TV

Many argued that the portrayal of Virat Kohli and Genelia D'Souza engaging in such behaviour was disrespectful to aviation professionals. Virat Kohli and Genelia D'Souza once starred in an advertisement for a watch brand, which was deemed too suggestive for Indian television. It was banned by the authorities for its 'adult content'. The video featured Genelia as an airhostess, enticing 'pilot' Virat to have sex with her during the course of the flight. 'Pilot' Virat gives in, risking the lives of the passengers. The advertisement suggested that the autopilot mode was introduced by airlines as the crew wanted to indulge in sexual relations. A glimpse of the clip has resurfaced on Reddit, reminding fans about the video. It was shared with the caption, 'The ad of Genelia and Virat was so controversial that it got banned within its release." Have a look here: One person wrote, 'Abhi dekha, ban hone jaisa tha." Another wrote, 'How did Genelia agree to this, considering the family she was about to get married into?" Another person wrote, referring to Ranbir Kapoor's character in Animal, 'Did it earlier than Ranvijay." Someone else added, 'Genelia was such a smoke show. Is still very beautiful." Referring to Virat's recent comment about the Instagram algorithm, another wrote, 'Now I have reached the conclusion that Virat bhau hi aapna Instagram chalate hai." The video was also reportedly banned as it showed people's lives being put at risk for humour. Many argued that the portrayal of a pilot and an airhostess engaging in such behaviour was disrespectful to aviation professionals and sent the wrong message to younger audiences. While the advertisement was banned from being aired on Indian television, it is still available on YouTube. Have a look here: Virat and Genelia featured in a series of provocative ads for the brand. In another video, the duo is seen emerging one after the other from a fitting room, dishevelled and exchanging flirty glances, implying that they had engaged in a sexual encounter inside. The ad hinted at carefree, nonchalant attitudes toward relationships and societal norms. While many viewers found the ad humorous and in line with modern culture, others criticised it for being too risqué for mainstream television. Complaints quickly poured in from viewers who considered the ad indecent and inappropriate, especially for younger audiences. Many argued that the commercial promoted casual sex and undermined Indian cultural values. Despite the backlash, the controversy did little to affect the careers of either Kohli or D'Souza. Kohli continued to grow into a global cricket icon, while Genelia remained a popular actress and public figure. First Published: